


Obstacles

by prepare4trouble



Series: Little By Little [32]
Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Base personnel are untidy, Dokma, Dokma Swarm, Gen, Hera and Kanan are space parents to the whole base, Obstacle course, Visually Impaired Ezra Bridger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-27
Updated: 2017-05-27
Packaged: 2018-11-05 15:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11016588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prepare4trouble/pseuds/prepare4trouble
Summary: Hera tells Kanan about a new form of entertainment on the base, and someone learns first-hand why they should pick up after themselves.





	Obstacles

“There’s another one,” Hera said, scowling in frustration at the pile of junk left discarded on the ground.

Kanan, by her side, frowned. “Another what?”

“An obstacle course,” she told him, making her way over the remains of last night’s entertainment. Kanan followed her, easily stepping over and around the dokma that littered the ground.

She knelt down to inspect the pile of trash, but it was difficult to tell what the unfortunate dokma had been expected to do to get from one side to the other. There were wide tubes, presumably tunnels for it to crawl through; netting, she had no idea what that was for; sheets and pieces of metal fused together in such a way that walking over it would cause it to rock from one side to another, or backwards and forwards. She picked up a handful of the stuff and handed it to Kanan, then picked up the rest for herself.

“Just dump it over by where the engineers are working, they’re the ones that are doing it. There’s no point throwing it out, they’ll just make it again; it’s not like we have a shortage of old junk.”

Kanan nodded distractedly. His hands ran quickly over the objects that he was holding, exploring the shape of the objects he was holding. The tips of his fingers ran along the rough welding job fusing two metal sheets together. “What do you mean ‘obstacle course’?” he asked.

Hera glanced at him in surprise. But then, he wouldn’t know. The obstacle courses were a new invention, and she had only noticed them around since the latest wave of dokma had begun to descend on the base; a result of people taking advantage of the large supply of the creatures, and the fact that they suddenly seemed more willing to move around and perform than they had before.

Kanan had other things on his mind during that time, more important things, and _she_ only knew about the obstacle courses because she had seen the resulting junk piles around and asked what they were. Kanan, of course, wouldn’t have seen them, and if he had noticed them at all, probably hadn’t registered them as anything more than something in the way, to be avoided. There were differences now in the way they perceived the world, and sometimes she had to force herself to remember that.

“People’ve been making obstacle courses for the dokma, since the invasion started,” she explained. “They’re almost as popular as the races.”

“Invasion?” Kanan smiled. “Yeah, I suppose it does feel a bit like that.” He turned toward the engineers’ area with his armful of junk. “Well, I haven’t been to the races in some time, so I guess I wouldn't have heard about it, and Ezra…” he stopped, stepped around a cluster of dokma, and shook his head.

Hera followed after him, jogging a few steps to catch up and walk by his side. “Ezra what?” she asked. “Is he okay?”

Kanan shrugged. “He hasn’t been going either. We should tell the engineers to clear this stuff away when they’re done; somebody might trip.”

“Believe me, I’ve told them,” she assured him. “And I’ll tell them again. Though to be honest, piles of trash are less dangerous than the dokma. At least they won’t get up and start wandering around the place. I’m starting to forget what the base was like before I had to watch my step everywhere I went.”

Kanan nodded and gave a tight smile. He was wearing his mask, but she was sure that if his eyes were uncovered, the expression wouldn’t have reached them.

“What is it?” she asked.

Kanan shook his head. “Nothing. Rough night last night, nothing to worry about. You’re right, they could be dangerous.” He increased his pace slightly, avoiding the creatures easily as he did. “Ezra doesn’t think they’ll be here for long though. They’re taking part in some kind of migration, no idea why, and they’ve stuck around here because they’ve noticed it’s safe from the spiders. He doesn't think they’ll stay for too much longer.”

Hera frowned at that. As theories went, there was nothing wrong with it, but there was no possible way for Ezra to know that. They hadn’t been on the planet long enough for them to have studied the local wildlife. Unless Ezra had some way to talk to the dokma, it was nothing but a theory. A good theory, but not one that could be proven. At least until the dokma did as he predicted. Even if he was right, they didn’t know enough about the dokma, which included how many of them there were, or how long any migration was likely to take.

One thing she did know for certain was that moving the creatures off the base, no matter how far beyond the perimeter they were taken, didn’t seem to have resulted in any fewer dokma around the place. She wondered whether canceling the order to keep transporting them away might help. For a start, if Ezra’s theory was right, for all they knew, they were taking the creatures back the way they had come from, which would mean them returning through the safety of the base again. On the other hand, it was entirely possible that leaving them where they were would lead to overcrowding, which would encourage them to move on.

Even more dokma, on top of the extra that they were already dealing with, might make for an unpleasant few days for Phoenix Squadron, but it might be worth it in the long run.

“What are you thinking?” Kanan asked. They reached their destination, and placed the junk on the ground in a slightly tidier pile than they had found it, against the side of a building to reduce the chances of somebody tripping over it.

Hera shook her head. “Nothing. How could Ezra know what’s happening with them?”

“He doesn’t exactly _know_ it, but he managed to connect with some of the dokma last night. I asked him to, thought it’d give him something to do.”

So, in a way, he had spoken to the creatures. Or, not ‘spoken’, but something similar.

Kanan folded his arms and half turned away from her. _Rough night_ , he had told her. Something had gone wrong, something that he hadn’t planned on. Something that he didn't want to talk about. Hera reached out and touched him on the arm, but didn’t ask. If he had wanted to share, he would have done so, and because he didn’t, he must have had a good reason.

“One good thing about this dokma situation,” she said. “It’s giving people something else to talk about, other than Ezra.” She turned and headed away. Kanan followed after her, seeming distracted. “I’m going to tell the teams picking up the dokma to stop, they’re fighting a losing battle anyway, and I’m sure there’s something more productive they could be doing,” she added.

Kanan shrugged. “Probably, but…” he was cut off by a loud crash behind them.

Hera spun on her heels to see one of the engineers picking himself up from the ground, surrounded by the remnants of the neat pile of trash they had carefully left out of the way, against a wall where nobody could possibly trip on it. Only, apparently they could.

“How..?” She couldn’t see any possible way that that could have happened by accident.

Kanan shrugged, still facing away from the scene. “He stepped around one of the dokma, almost stood on another, dodged too far and ran right into a pile of stuff that he probably should have cleared away last night.”

Hera stared at Kanan, half in disbelief, half in awe. If he could tell what was happening in that much detail, if he could teach that to Ezra… “How do you know he’s the one that made the obstacle course?” she asked.

Kanan shrugged. “Honestly? I don’t even know who he is, let alone what he did last night. But the engineers work together at this stuff, so if he’s an engineer I think it’s a safe bet he was involved.”

She glanced back at the man, torn between walking away and going back to help him to his feet, but he was already halfway there, staring at the collection of spare parts and junk in confusion, as though he couldn’t work out how it had materialized there. He dusted himself off, glanced around and caught sight of the two of them, immediately stiffened in surprise, then bent down and began to collect the larger pieces. Hera smiled. Maybe she wasn’t going to have to remind them to tidy up again after all.

**Author's Note:**

> This whole dokma thing _is_ going somewhere, I promise. Bear with me.


End file.
